Glenn Wheeler: May Day gives Canadian unions a chance to reflect on the future of labour (in The Toronto Star)

"We need to convince workers that we have a valuable service that we can provide for a very modest charge – in many cases, less than your monthly cable TV bill. They don’t need a union because their employer is part of a capitalist conspiracy but because management advances the company’s interests and workers need someone to protect theirs."

Full article: May Day gives Canadian unions a chance to reflect on the future of labour.

Glenn Wheeler is legal counsel for a labour union and an executive member of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Sierra Club Scrapbook: Combating Climate Change and Global Poverty in One Fell Swoop

Full article: Combating Climate Change and Global Poverty in One Fell Swoop.

Thanks to TckTckTck for this link.

Eduardo Paes: The 4 commandments of cities | Video on TED.com

Eduardo Paes: The 4 commandments of cities | Video on TED.com.

Fantastic presentation! Maybe the mayor of Toronto should watch this!

Arctic News: Comprehensive Plan of Action

Arctic News: Comprehensive Plan of Action

David Climenhaga: Why Alberta's Wildrose Party is not long for this world

Full article: Why Alberta's Wildrose Party is not long for this world.

Post appearing in Rabble.ca and David Climenhaga's blog, Alberta diary.

Animal, vegetable - or monster? 9ft-high fossil dubbed 'Godzillus' baffles experts (Daily Mail)

Full article: Animal, vegetable - or monster? 9ft-high fossil dubbed 'Godzillus' baffles experts.

Carol Goar: Greed loses its glamour, even on Wall Street (in The Toronto Star)

"... restive stirring is in the air. Once-passive investors are beginning to challenge the notion that corporate CEOs deserve 300 times as much pay as the average worker. Once-tractable voters are beginning to question the notion that raising taxes is unthinkable.

"The pendulum, stuck at the far right for a decade, is beginning to shift."

Full article: Greed loses its glamour, even on Wall Street.

David Olive: Ignatieff, "forgotten but not gone" (in The Toronto Star)

Full article: Ignatieff never has and never will understand Canada.

Stephen Bede Scharper: A tree, a hill and a prayer (in The Toronto Star)

"Deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, [Julia Butterfly] Hill claims that one of the greatest crises we now face, both in our human and ecological relations, is the “disease of disconnect,” a “separation syndrome” whereby we don’t see our fundamental biological and spiritual connection with the trees, the waters, the air and the other elements of life. We somehow persist in thinking that we can continue with business as usual, destroying our ecosystems, polluting our waters, eliminating species, changing the climate, and it won’t adversely affect our health or the well-being of our families."

Full article: A tree, a hill and a prayer.

Heather Mallick: Shame on Collingwood-area residents building tiny houses to block wind farm (in The Toronto Star)

"... How we fool ourselves, as if our resolute wrecking of our children’s future is some kind of guarantee that we will live forever in endless moneyed comfort.

"It won’t work out that way. We live inside a planetary dome. It will grow hotter and hotter in those turbine-hostile dollhouses. If only their owners were forced to actually live in them, a Big Brother test case of how well — or how badly — we’ll endure a pressure-cooked future."

Full article: Shame on Collingwood-area residents building tiny houses to block wind farm.

Earth Day 2012: 15 sci-fi writers tackle climate change (in The Toronto Star)

Earth Day 2012: 15 sci-fi writers tackle climate change.

Some good ideas here - I particularly like the "rocket stove", and, as you might expect, Bob Sawyer does not disappoint...!

Tavis Smiley & Cornel West on "The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto" (on Democracy Now!)

Transcript: Tavis Smiley & Cornel West on "The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto".

Did you know that right now, nearly 1 in 2 Americans are poor, or near poverty? As Amy Goodman says, that's an astounding figure. That's around 150 million people - whatever happened to the American Dream?

Keystone XL's Dirty Little Secret (on AlterNet)

Full article: Keystone XL's Dirty Little Secret.

And you thought the point of Keystone XL was to give the US an energy source that didn't have to come from a different continent?!

Sara Robinson: 6 People You Need to Start a Revolution (in AlterNet)

Full article: Sara Robinson of AlterNet describes the 6 types of people you need to start a successful revolution.

The Disaffected Lib: Prepping Business for a Turbulent Environmental Future

The Disaffected Lib: Prepping Business for a Turbulent Environmental Future.

Haroon Siddiqui: Is the Charter changing Canada for the worse? (in The Toronto Star)

“Canadians see medicare as a social good. Americans see it as a commodity. That’s the sharp, sharp contrast between our societies.” - Roy Romanow, the former NDP premier of Saskatchewan, and one of the architects of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Full article: Canada News: Siddiqui: Is the Charter changing Canada for the worse?.

Sven Eberlein: What If We Stopped Freaking Out About Climate Change? (in AlterNet)

Full article: What If We Stopped Freaking Out About Climate Change?.

"Super Sand" Cleans Dirty Drinking Water with Graphite Waste (in TreeHugger)

Full article: "Super Sand" Cleans Dirty Drinking Water with Graphite Waste.

Poll challenges view that Canadians oppose higher taxes (in The Toronto Star)

Full article: Canada News: Poll challenges view that Canadians oppose higher taxes.

Could it be that the famed antipathy to taxes of N. Americans is in fact something that has been consciously manipulated by the neocons and big business that supports them...?

Also an article by Ed Broadbent on this in same paper.

The Horrors of an Ayn Rand World (AlterNet)

The Horrors of an Ayn Rand World - News & Politics - AlterNet.

This is a world-wide challenge...